The invention relates to communications systems and methods, and more particularly to systems and methods for conducting teleconferences involving facsimile communications.
Teleconferencing including audioconferencing and videoconferencing has become a vital part of everyday business. With teleconferencing, a meeting where attendees from different locations participate through telephone connections can be scheduled and held in an efficient manner.
Similar to teleconferencing, facsimile communications allow remote parties to efficiently exchange information in the form of an image through telephone connections. Services based on facsimile communications have emerged and include, for example, facsimile distribution and facsimile mailbox services. In accordance with the facsimile distribution service, a predefined list of facsimile numbers of parties for whom facsimile information is intended is stored in a server. The latter broadcasts the facsimile information when it is ready according to the stored list. On the other hand, in accordance with the facsimile mailbox service, the facsimile information is first stored in a repository. A recipient afterwards can conveniently call a given number to retrieve the facsimile information from the repository.
The marriage of teleconferencing and facsimile communications has been observed. For example, in advance of a teleconference, meeting presentation materials and agendas are usually distributed to the attendees for their review. The distribution is typically by facsimile transmission using a list of the attendees"" facsimile numbers provided earlier. To that end, the above facsimile distribution service may be employed.
The combination of the teleconferencing and facsimile communications techniques just described presents major benefits to business people including cutting down on their traveling costs and time, and increasing their productivity. However, during a teleconference, a need to transmit materials by facsimile to attendees often arises. This need may stem from that one or more of the attendees do not have the presentation materials in front of them even though the materials were facsimile-transmitted to them earlier, or the facsimile materials never reached them. It may also stem from that last minute changes in the presentation materials, or impromptu materials developed in the course of the teleconference need to be communicated to each attendee during the conference or shortly afterwards.
It would be a simple task to facsimile-transmit such materials if the facsimile numbers of the attendees remain the same as those in the list provided earlier, which are most likely their office facsimile numbers. This list may have been stored in the teleconferencing system conducting the teleconference, which is capable of facsimile transmission according to the stored list. However, taking advantage of the locational freedom afforded by teleconferencing, the attendees at the teleconference could be anywhere other than their offices, where they have access to telephone equipment. For example, they could be in a hotel room, traveling in a car, or working at home. Thus, the previous facsimile numbers are no longer valid for those attendees. In order to facsimile-transmit any materials in the teleconference, the facsimile originator oftentimes needs to find out the latest facsimile numbers of other attendees during the conference. At the same time, those attendees away from the office may scramble to locate a usable facsimile number, which may not be handy. The originator then collects the latest facsimile numbers, and finally makes the necessary changes to the original list of numbers before it is submitted for facsimile transmission. This practice proves to be disruptive to the conference, counterproductive, and at times unwieldy.
The invention overcomes the prior art limitations by closely tying the teleconferencing facility to the facsimile communications facility such that the facsimile communications during the teleconference are well coordinated. In accordance with the invention, when a communication connection with an attendee is established at the beginning of the teleconference, information regarding the attendee""s facsimile equipment and his/her facsimile preferences is obtained through the same communication connection. In the preferred embodiment, a teleconferencing server is employed and comprises a voice bridge to which the communication connection is terminated. The voice bridge conveys the above attendee""s facsimile information to a facsimile bridge in the server. The facsimile bridge then distributes facsimile data associated with the teleconference based on such information. In an alternative embodiment, through the same communication connection established between the attendee and the teleconferencing server in conducting the teleconference, the attendee is provided with information for retrieval of the facsimile data from a repository.
The invention affords advantages over a prior art teleconferencing system which enables an attendee to receive facsimile data on demand during a teleconference. Such a prior art system requires the attendee to use a communication connection other than the connection for the teleconference to communicate to the system the facsimile needs. As a result, the attendee has to either terminate the conference connection or locate another telephone to establish a separate connection to communicate such facsimile needs. In either event, in addition to the inconvenience imposed on the attendee, the attendee has to abandon the on-going teleconference, albeit temporarily, and may miss important information from the conference during his/her absence.
By contrast, with the invention, issues concerning facsimile needs are effectively resolved during the teleconference using the same communication connection for the conference, without interfering with the conference proceeding. As a result, the efficiency of the teleconference is much improved.